We are grateful to Métis artist Leah Marie Dorion for sharing her artwork “Passing Water Forward” for our ASWM event. Leah is a Métis writer and artist currently living near Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Canada. Her artwork celebrates the strength and resilience of Indigenous women and families. She has also authored books forMétis children and illustrated other books on Métis culture. See more about Leah and her work here.
Our interludes between live panels combine Leah’s beautiful image with the soothing, flowing music of Sound Alchemist Laura Inserra.
Reimagining Goddess Scholarship: At the Edges of Sacred Knowledge
Sunday, May 3 2026
This symposium is a conversation that focuses closely on the question of “Who holds/gives voice to sacred knowledge?” A spacious schedule allows us to create dialogues among speakers and members. Our program features three panels on issues that we are often asked to consider. In this online format we are able to feature panelists from a wide range of disciplines and locations. Our featured speaker is Dr. Apela Colorado, Director of the Worldwide Indigenous Sciences Network. Apela and the WISN “dream team” of Mahea Ahia, PhD, and Katrina Maulion Arriola, MA (NOTE: Katrina was not able to attend due to family emergency), will discuss the barriers they experienced while recovering the foundational story of Manuakepa the Owl Woman and navigating traditional Indigenous knowledge protocols.
Schedule 2026 Symposium Times given are Eastern Daylight Time
Panel 1: Gatekeeping/Safekeeping Material Culture
- Carla Ionescu, “Where Are the Hundreds? Museum Display, Fragmentation, and the Hidden Magnitude of Goddess Cults”
- Mary Beth Moser, “Sacred Belonging: The Enduring Presence of the Black Madonna in Italy”
- Barbara Mann, “We Don’t Play with Dead Things”
Panel 2: Revitalizing Sacred Ceremony
- Cutcha Risling Baldy “We Are Dancing For You: Native Feminisms and the Revitalization of Women’s Coming-of-Age Ceremonies in California”
- Kay Turner “Dining with Hekate: Embodied Knowledge as a Source of Nourishment”
- Apostolia Papadamaki, “Anamnesis: Embodying Ancient Greek Mysticism Through Ceremonial Performances“
Panel 3: Dethroning Human Hubris
- Arieahn Matamonasa Bennett, “Western Science is “half-brained”: Indigenous Elders had it right: Rethinking Animal-Human relationships and research“
- Monica Mody, “Divinity and Life in Nondual Consciousness: Revisioning Our Relations With More-than-Human Worlds”
- Judy Grahn, “Encountering mutual consciousness in tiny forms”
Registration is now closed for this year’s symposium. Recordings are available until June 30 2026, to everyone who registered. After that time, all recordings will be available to all members in the Member Library.
We are grateful to Métis artist Leah Marie Dorion for sharing her artwork “Passing Water Forward” for our ASWM event. Leah is a Métis writer and artist currently living near Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Canada. Her artwork celebrates the strength and resilience of Indigenous women and families. She has also authored books forMétis children and illustrated other books on Métis culture. See more about Leah and her work here.
Our interludes between live panels combine Leah’s beautiful image with the soothing, flowing music of Sound Alchemist Laura Inserra.
Leah Dorion’s Artwork Graces our 2026 Symposium
Our thanks to Leah Marie Dorion for sharing her artwork with us for our 2026 Symposium, “Reimagining Goddess Scholarship: At the Edges of Sacred Knowledge.”
The program for this event reframes knowledge transmission and curation and promotes new connections and relationships among people, animals, and the green world. Leah’s painting, “Passing Water Forward” beautifully conveys the intention and spirit of our program, as sacred knowledge is passed from one generation to another..
Leah Marie Dorion is a Metis writer and artist currently living near Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Canada. Her artwork celebrates the strength and resilience of Indigenous women and families, and echoes the beauty found in traditional beadwork. Leah is also a published children’s book author and illustrator. Leah has a passion for early year’s education and is currently working with the Metis Nation of British Columbia (MNBC) to develop Metis cultural early years resources for children and families. She has also participated as a mentor and lead artist for the Mann Art Gallery Indigenous Residency Project. She is a proud member of CARFAC which is the national voice of Canada’s professional visual artists. Visit www.leahdorion.ca for more information about her artistic practice.
About this painting, Leah says “This artwork features Indigenous women gathering water from the river. The gathered water is carried within sacred vessels to represent the passing forward of knowledge about the land and water through the generations. There is a baby in a cradleboard on the mother’s back and a young girl helping to draw up the river water into her vessel to emphasize that water is necessary for life to blossom, grow, and flourish in this world.
“Holding a vessel of water in our arms, close to our heart, is representative of sharing your wisdom and knowledge to guide future generations. The Canadian Geese flying in the sky are a symbol about how important it is to find direction in life and work together as a community for the highest good of all.”
In this beautiful video, Leah discusses her artistic vision.
2026 Symposium to Feature Dr. Apela Colorado
Dr. Apela Colorado, along with two members of the Worldwide Indigenous Sciences Network “Dream Team” is our featured speaker for our upcoming symposium:
2026 Online Symposium, May 3 2026:
“Reimagining Goddess Scholarship: At the Edges of Sacred Knowledge.”
Apela Colorado, Ph.D. (Oneida-Gaul) is a renowned Indigenous scholar, educator, and cultural bridge-builder whose work centers on restoring Indigenous wisdom and forging ethical relationships between Western and Indigenous knowledge systems. A Ford Foundation Fellow, she earned her Ph.D. in Social Policy from Brandeis University in 1982, with additional coursework in Federal Indian Law and Child Welfare at Harvard University.
In 1989, Dr. Colorado founded the Worldwide Indigenous Science Network (WISN), which she continues to lead. WISN fosters the revitalization and global exchange of traditional knowledge, protects endangered Indigenous cultural practitioners, and facilitates respectful dialogue between Indigenous science and Western disciplines. A major recent milestone in Dr. Colorado’s work is the establishment of WISN’s graduate program in Indigenous Science and Peace Studies at the University for Peace (UPEACE) in Costa Rica.
In 1997, she was honored by the State of the World Forum as one of twelve women leaders selected from 52 countries. She has represented Indigenous perspectives at global events including the United Nations Earth Summit and the Conference on Religion and Environment hosted by the President of Indonesia.
Dr. Colorado’s publications explore sacred ecology, ancestral memory, and Indigenous methodologies. Her recent books include Woman Between the Worlds: A Call to Your Ancestral and Indigenous Wisdom (Hay House, 2021) and Journal des Rêves (WISN.org). She continues to mentor global leaders working at the intersections of culture, land, and spirit.
2025 Conference Panel: Sacred Places, Living Lands and Memory
Saturday, March 29, 2025, Westward Look Inn, Tucson AZ
Sacred Places, Living Lands and Memory
with Dilsa Deniz, Sarah Chandler, Constance Tippett and Dawn Work-Makinne
- Shamir (Diamond Toothed) Worm – Pacifist Slave or Anti-Prophetic Savior: Exploring Ancient and Modern Jewish Myths of Soil and Stone, Sarah Chandler
- Herda Dewresh – The Sacred Earth in Kurdish Alevi Tradition, Dilsa Deniz
- Moons at Serpent Mound, Constance Tippett
- Animism, Indigeneity and Memory, Dawn Work-Makinne
Dilşa Deniz, a Kurdish anthropologist with a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology and an MA in Women’s Studies. Her research focuses on gender, culture, mythology, eco-spirituality, and environmental challenges in Kurdish Alevi communities, addressing racism and internal colonization. In her book Shamaran: The Neolithic Eternal Mother, is one of the oldest Mother Earth Goddesses she introduces.
Kohenet Shamirah Bechirah aka Sarah Chandler is a Brooklyn-based Jewish educator, artist, activist, healer, and poet. She teaches, writes, and consults on issues related to Kabbalistic dreamwork, earth-based spiritual practices, mindfulness, and farming. She has been teaching Jewish eco-ritual weaving for over 20 years. An advanced student of Kabbalistic dream work at The School of Images, she also holds a M.A. in Jewish Education and a M.A. in Hebrew Bible from the Jewish Theological Seminary, and a certificate in Non-Profit Management and Jewish Communal Leadership from Columbia University. As the CEO of Shamir Collective, she coaches high-profile and emergent artists, musicians, and authors to weave portals for the next stage of creativity. She has served on the ASWM board since 2020, both as outreach manager and acting treasurer, as well as a core volunteer since 2019.
Constance Tippett is best known for her “Goddesstimeline that shows 40,00- years of imagery of women and Goddess throughout history. She also makes museum quality clay replications of Goddess statues. She is now working on a project to try and decode the meaning of Serpent Mound, which is an astronomical monument made by the indigenous People of the Americans.
Dawn Work-MaKinne, Ph.D., is an independent scholar interested in animism, the sacred feminine and Germanic Europe. Her work has appeared in Goddesses in World Culture and in ASWM conference proceedings, and she completed the final content-editing of Patricia Monaghan’s last Book of Goddesses and Heroines. She lives, studies and teaches in a forest grove in Des Moines, Iowa.
Read all about the ASWM Conference and register here.
2025 Brigit Award for Excellence in the Arts: Lauren Raine
Awarded on Saturday, March 29, 2025, Westward Look Inn, Tucson Arizona
2025 Brigit Award for Excellence in the Arts Awarded to Lauren Raine
This award given in recognition of her decades of creative endeavor as a temple mask-maker, creatrix of art installations, sculptress, ritual theatre performer, painter, author, visionary, and mythographer.
The award letter for Lauren reads in part:
The Masks of the Goddess Project, perhaps your best-known work, consists of stunning masks crafted in the tradition of Balinese temple-masks. These masks were created to reclaim the stories of female deities from across the world’s cultures, and to empower women to explore each archetype within themselves With the Masks of the Goddess you collaborated with dancers, ritualists, playwrights, storytellers, priestesses, and activists to bring the Goddesses into the world through the words of the women who wore their masks and wrote their stories. Since their creation in 1998, the Masks of the Goddess have traveled throughout the US and abroad, touching and transforming the lives of hundreds of women.
We honor you also for the shrines and icons you have created. Your ongoing series entitled: Earth Shrine, is a product of your lifelong conversation with the numinous intelligence in nature.
Out of that conversation you have also created NUMINA: Masks for the Elemental Powers which is your elucidation of the magical sense of communion with place. As you said, “In the past “Nature” was not a “backdrop” or a “resource” – the World was a conversation.”
In Our Lady of the Shards, you celebrate the forgotten women of history: midwives, wise women, weavers, spinners, Goddesses and priestesses. In Shrine for the Lost: the Sixth Extinction (2022), you created a book, and art installation for the 2023 World Parliament of Religions, emphasizing the magnitude of the loss our biosphere has suffered.
With your four sculptures The Guardians, which symbolize and invoke the Guardians of the Four Directions, as well as the Four Elements, you cast a circle of protection to safeguard us from further ecological loss. In Spider Woman’s Hands you weave, reveal, and remember a vision of a unitive, co-creative world through sculpture, weaving, and performance.
Writing about mythology you have observed: “We’re dancing the future into the world by the stories we tell: like the web of the Native American creatrix Spider Woman, the threads of myth are spun far behind us, and weave their way far into the futures of those not yet born.
“May we dance empathy instead of despair, may we tell the stories that make life sacred and loving, profound and reverent.”
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